TCADP January 2013 Alert: Register Now for the 2013 Annual Conference!

In this edition:Scheduled ExecutionsAnnual ConferenceIn the NewsCalendar

Executions

On January 29, 2013, the State of Texas is scheduled to execute Kimberly McCarthy for the 1997 murder of 71-year-old retired college professor Dorothy Booth in Dallas County. McCarthy is one of ten women on death row in Texas; the State has executed three women since 1982. You can sign a petition on her behalf through change.org.

Appreciation: JC Dufresne, who played an instrumental role in the Texas Democratic Party’s decision to endorse abolition of the death penalty in its 2012 Platform.

Appreciation: Methodist Federation for Social Action-Southwest Texas Chapter, for their years of involvement and ongoing contributions to the abolition movement.

Media: Joe Bailey, Jr. and Steve Mims (pictured), Filmmakers of “Incendiary”, a documentary about the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 despite serious flaws in the forensic science used to convict him and doubts about his guilt.

Exhibitors/Advertisers: We invite individuals and organizations to place an ad in the conference programto promote your work and congratulate the award winners. We also invite you to exhibit at the conference, or sponsor a table at the awards luncheon. Download Exhibitor – Advertiser Form.

Panel Discussion: In addition to the annual awards luncheon, the conference will feature a plenary session on how instances of wrongful convictions and evidence of wrongful executions are changing the conversation on the death penalty. Confirmed panelists are:

Karen Boudrie, an award-winning journalist, news director, and public relations consultant who covered the trial of Carlos DeLuna in Corpus Christi in 1983 and was the last person to speak with him before his wrongful execution in 1989;

Anthony Graves, a motivational speaker and legal consultant who spent 12.5 years on death row before being exonerated in 2010; and

What’s the situation in your county? Read the report and view maps of Texas that depict death sentences by county from 1976-2012 and from 2008-2012. TCADP will deliver a copy of the report to every legislative office at the State Capitol on Tuesday, January 22, 2013. To volunteer to help with this effort, please contact Kristin at khoule@tcadp.org.

Two Former Texas District Attorneys Call for Reconsideration of Death Penalty
In an opinion piece that appeared on December 13, 2012 in the Houston Chronicle, former District Attorneys Grant Jones and Sam Millsap note the serious flaws in the death penalty system as part of their call for legislators to give this issue serious reconsideration. They note that they “have come face to face with some hard truths” about a penalty that they no longer believe in. Read the piece in its entirety.

New Report Reveals National Death Penalty Developments in 2012; New York Times Notes Growing Momentum for Abolition
On December 18, 2012, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) released its year-end report, The Death Penalty in 2012. According to the report, the number of new death sentences in 2012 was the second lowest since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. For the second year in a row, 43 executions took place in the United States – just four states (Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Arizona) accounted for more than 75% of executions in 2012. Read more.

Much of the information in DPIC’s report was reinforced in a January 1, 2013 editorial from the New York Times, “America’s Retreat from the Death Penalty,” which calls on the U.S. Supreme Court to “recognize that under evolving standards capital punishment is cruel and unusual and should be abolished.” Read it now!

Executions in 2016

Stays Granted
March 30th: John Battaglia
May 27th: Charles Flores
June 17th: Robert Roberson
July 6th: Perry Williams
August 11th: Robert Pruett
August 19th: Jeff Wood
August 26th: Rolando Ruiz
September 2nd: Robert Jennings
December 2nd: John Battaglia